You are receiving this email to inform you of a recent disruption in provisioning IMb Tracing data.

The Postal Service is in the process of upgrading its letter mail processing equipment software in support of the January 2013 POSTNET retirement. As a result of this migration, some scan data was not reported to the IMb Tracing system from mid-January to present. The Postal Service identified the root cause of the issue and immediately initiated steps to limit further data loss. A monitoring process has been instituted to verify software configuration is set correctly.

Please note, there has been no impact to mail processing or service performance as a result of this issue.

We appreciate your patience and we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to your internal processes. Please continue to report any IMb Tracing data issues to the IMb Tracing helpdesk.

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As an IMb Tracing service provider, we knew and reported the problem soon after the changes took place.

In addition to noticing the data disruption, we continue in the endless cycle of getting Operation Codes that the Postal Service will not share the definitions of, even after repeated requests for the information. These are Operation Codes that should not be provisioned to IMb Tracing subscribers, yet, there they are, and we need to know what Operation they refer to. These invalid codes are reported, semi-cleaned up or not acted upon at all, and the cycle continues.

Systems require a strong foundation before they can be expanded upon. Reliable, easily accessible data, delivered in a timely manner is expected in order to add value to the mail stream, and in order for Full Service IMb to fulfill its promises. The USPS should be expected to deliver nothing less.